Marriage At Murraree

I was ready for hostility, anger, bitter resentment, even blame, thought Casey.

Instead it was like they all knew she was going to turn up one day. Kindness and generosity seemed to emanate from Darcy. Her big sister?

“You’re too nice to me,” Casey said abruptly.

“Who could deny a goddess?” Troy pressed back in his chair, smiling his bold, tantalizing smile.

“It’s settled, then,” Darcy said, eyes sparkling. “Give us a call when you want to come home.”

Never had Casey been so glad she had her sunglasses on. She, who never cried except on increasingly rare occasions when she was flooded by her nightmares, felt the sting of tears.

Home? Did she have a home? If she hadn’t been such an undemonstrative person she would have put her arms around Darcy and hugged her.

Margaret Way takes great pleasure in her work and works hard at her pleasure. She enjoys tearing off to the beach with her family on weekends, loves haunting galleries and auctions and is completely given over to French champagne “for every possible joyous occasion.” She was born and educated in the river city of Brisbane, Australia, and now lives within sight and sound of beautiful Moreton Bay.

Marriage at Murraree

Margaret Way

The McIvor Sisters

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

IF SHE hadn’t landed on planet Mars, she didn’t know where she was. The heat and the blinding glare! The colour of the desert sand was unbelievable, fiery-red, burnt-orange. It glowed like a furnace under the rich blue sky. The very vastness stunned her. The plains ran out to the horizon without anything to connect them to humans. It must seem the same to a sailor adrift on a great ocean she thought. Her trip was turning into quite an experience. The lack of anything except the land in all its savage glory was amazing. Space. Pure air. Freedom. In a place like this she might be able to regain her soul. These desert areas—and she realised she was only on the desert fringe—were seemingly barren except for the eternal porcupine grasses, the Spinifex. It had covered huge areas of her journey into Queensland’s vast Outback. The legendary name, The Never Never was right on. She had never seen such a surreal landscape outside of a painting.

Brilliant red earth, cobalt vault, totally cloudless, large rounded clumps of Spinifex like giant pincushions scorched to a dull gold. In the distance the baffling mirage danced in waves, conjuring up alluring green oases with lots of lovely water. She could well understand how the early pioneers had followed it, never catching up. This had to be somewhere near the place the English explorer, Captain Charles Sturt had battled his way with horses in search of the inland sea. What had he called it? The Iron Region. Or maybe that was the Stony Desert named after him. Either way it was awesome country, with enormous drawing power.

Casey pulled off the dead straight road that went nowhere. Goodness knows why, she thought wryly, no one else was on it. She’d been travelling for days yet she’d hardly seen a soul. She turned off the ignition of her battered old ute and consulted her map again, resting it on the steering wheel. To be landed in this immense empty wilderness could turn out to be extremely hazardous. One wouldn’t need to have a breakdown or run out of water. The glare alone was soporific. It had damned nearly put her to sleep. Of course the ancient ute had no air-conditioning and it was blazingly hot.

It was well she was tough. She had to be. No one had looked after her. She had lived hard. Born in a shack on the outskirts of a tropical town. Reared by a mother who hardly knew how to look after herself let alone a child. Then after her mother had died of a drug overdose, The Home. Bad, bad days. She’d endured that until she was sixteen when she left with nothing but searing memories. Truth was she had never had a real home anywhere.

You’ve got a lot to answer for, Jock McIvor.

Casey reckoned he’d be in hell and deservedly so.

There was nothing else to do but drive on, hoping Old Faithful would make it into the Three Rivers Country. For years she had heard mention of the Channel Country in the State’s far South-West on the weather report. She hadn’t taken much notice except to register it was darn hot! To her mind it sounded like the end of the earth. Only very recently had she learned it was the legendary home of the nation’s cattle kings. The domain of men like Jock McIvor.

She had never known who her father was. The kids at school had given her hell about that. Her poor little mother had been a joke, the butt of many a sick prank. Kids were so cruel. Pretty as a picture but so overwhelmed by life her mother had eventually sought solace first in alcohol, then in drugs. She had once confessed to Casey she didn’t want to live.

She hadn’t. She’d OD’d at the grand old age of thirty-six. Casey had always blamed herself for not being able to protect her mother but then she was only a kid at the time. At eleven she’d been put into The Home. Plenty of kids there didn’t have fathers or mothers, either. It wasn’t unusual for parents to dump their kids or make life so unbearable for them even The Home was preferable.

Casey drove on. She figured she was two hundred kilometres west of her last stop, the bush town of Cullen Creek. She hadn’t seen any creek, just a dry sandy bed someone told her in times of flood turned into a raging torrent. Hard to believe! As she’d gone in search of something to eat, the townspeople had stared at her like she’d stepped off a UFO that had landed in the main street. But at least they had given her a decent cup of tea and a plate of sandwiches made with freshly baked bread and plenty of ham and salad filling. A big apple and cinnamon muffin to follow and lots of advice about always letting someone know where she was heading in the Outback.

She hadn’t told them where she was going. Her appearance alone had magnetised them. Probably her height and her red hair. Both had made her a target as a kid. “How’s the weather up there, Agent Orange?” Even her mother had seemed to blame her for looking the way she did. At least her formidable height had saved her from a few batterings in The Home. She was good with her nails and her fists and her high kicking legs. The world was a dangerous place. She had found that out early.

Then six weeks ago, a blast from the past. An old friend of her mother’s came into her life. Not by chance. Judith Harrison had gone to a great deal of trouble to track down first Casey’s mother, then learning of her premature death, her only child. Judith Harrison it turned out had grown up with her mother and knew all about the family “tragedy”. Casey had not known anything about it since it had never passed her mother’s lips. Her poor little mother—at least they had loved one another—had been born into a well-to-do family. Casey had to have that explained to her. Twice. A woman who had lived with her child often below the breadline had come from a cushy background. The irony of it! Casey’s grandparents had since died, no doubt leaving their small fortune to a retirement village for pampered cats. Judith had been her mother’s friend from childhood, apparently consumed by guilt that she had never sought to contact Casey’s mother after she stormed out of the parental home, cutting all ties.

It was on account of a man. It always was. A mystery man Casey’s grandparents had never met yet instinctively feared. He had taken over their hitherto perfect daughter’s life, making her a different person. When Casey had calmed down from the revelation her mother had come from a very comfortable home, Judith told her she had spotted her mother and her lover just once. Once was enough. A week later she had seen the man being interviewed on television.

His name was Jock McIvor. Swashbuckling cattle baron. A man with money to burn.

Jock McIvor, who it appeared short of DNA testing, was Casey’s father. He couldn’t be anything else. He was even taller than she was. After she had finally closed the door on a sobbing Judith Harrison, nevertheless de-lumbered of her burden, Casey had made it her business to read up everything she could about McIvor that paragon of sin; all the press clippings, accompanied by photographs. Judith Harrison hadn’t lied. Handsome was too tame a word for him. The photographs were all in black and white so she didn’t know his exact colouring except for what Judith Harrison had told her. He had a leonine shock of red-gold hair. He was very tall, probably six-four with sapphire eyes and a cleft in his chin. Casey had almost laughed. It fit her own colouring. She even had—in her case—a dimple in her chin. In no way had she resembled her dark haired, dark eyed mother who’d been five-three at most. The person she resembled obviously was the person who had seduced her naïve little mother, ultimately destroying her life.

A man without conscience. Jock McIvor.

Powerful, rich, probably dumping one woman after the other, he had taken everything her mother could give him, then returned to his own world where pretty gullible little creatures like her mother didn’t belong. By the time her mother found out she was pregnant she was on her own and a long way from home. Casey had no way of knowing what her mother had felt then but she must have been terrified with no one to turn to. She had alienated her parents in abandoning herself to her lover.

Only her lover, it turned out, had a wife and a baby. A baby called Darcy.

Jock McIvor, who should have had Dirty Rotten Scoundrel as a bumper sticker.

But he was dead. That was okay. The family was going to pay. Those McIvor women—she knew all about the other one, Courtney, who had arrived a couple of years after the first born Darcy—those McIvor heiresses as the Press dubbed them—were rolling in money. That struck Casey as being shockingly unfair. If she were McIvor’s daughter and she didn’t for a moment doubt that she was, wasn’t she entitled to a stake? It was about time the poor and oppressed of this world had justice. Well she was poor enough to qualify but just let anyone try to oppress her. She’d had more than her fair share of that in The Home where all her survival skills had been tested.

She was probably traumatised. She had been sexually assaulted by The Cobra but he hadn’t managed to rape her on account of the noise she made and a great kick that would have carried her far in soccer, sending him hurtling across the room. She was fourteen then, almost at her full height and as wiry as hell. That had sent a message to the others. Leave McGuire alone or she might be tempted to slug you or kick you in the balls. She never had much of an education. About two days at school and a smattering of the three R’s she picked up at The Home where grade ten was about as good as it got. Could she ever forget even in her time two of the kids had committed suicide, unable to withstand the day in day out torment? She had prayed and prayed they had gone to a much better place….

For years Casey had been supporting herself singing for her supper. People really liked her in the pubs where she was starting to make a name for herself as a singer-songwriter. She had a good voice for country and she liked to think plenty of talent on the guitar. One of her boyfriends, a really nice guy—yes, there were a few out there—had taught her. He had even passed over his own expensive guitar saying when he heard her he realised he shouldn’t play any more. She’d even managed to finish her formal education to Leaving Certificate. Emboldened by the results, she had taken up various courses at an Adult Learning institute, even basic French. It made her feel cultured. On the purely practical side she’d signed on for a get-to-know-your-car course where she’d outshone most of the guys. Heck, she was as good as any A Grade garage mechanic, which was probably why the ute was still running.

Twenty minutes later she saw on a slight rise set well back from the road, a fairly impressive dwelling for this or any other neck of the woods. A homestead of some kind? Though she leaned forwards peering through the windshield she couldn’t see a solitary goat let alone a herd of cattle. It even had trees around it. Desert oaks. She’d become familiar with them. Several towering gums. A couple of palms. The house was two storey, built of rose coloured bricks finished off with wide verandahs, white cast-iron balustrades and white lattice treillage. What in the world was a quite handsome house doing in the middle of nowhere?

“You’re seeing things, Casey girl,” she mumbled to herself. Her heart missed a beat as a large stone flew up from the road and hit the windshield at a point close to her head. At various intervals on her long journey she had seen piles of glass at the side of the road marking the spots where some traveller had struck trouble. Mercifully her windscreen remained intact, but she would like to take on more water. The house didn’t look deserted. It looked lived-in. She could see a big galvanised iron water tank off to one side and a few out-buildings at the back. Surely a weary traveller could beg a container of water? Outback people were supposed to be hospitable. On the other hand she might run into some ornery character totting a .22. Nothing life dished up surprised her.

Okay, let’s see! Casey took the gravelled side road that led to the house. She wasn’t counting on a gate. I mean just how many people came calling? Nevertheless she got out to open it and closed it securely after her once the ute was inside. Maybe a bunch of cows was out back planning a stampede?

Not cows. A cattle dog, with the distinctive blue speckled coat and dark tan markings. She knew what it was. A Queensland Blue Heeler bred especially for droving and rounding up cattle. It came skittling around a corner of the house barking its head off, probably determined to make amends for having been taking a nap.

“Hey, fella!” she called to it, standing her ground. “What’s your problem? I’m not a bad person. I’m here for water.”

The bluey must have liked the sound of her voice. It stopped barking and came right up to her as though eager to clear up any misunderstandings.

“Hi, there, what’s your name?” She bent to pat it. She liked animals better than people and they liked her. There was a collar around its neck with a name tag.

“Rusty!” She chuckled. “Is that your name? Howya goin’, Rusty? You’re a clever boy. How about showing me up to the house?”

She could have sworn the dog smiled.

She rapped on the solid timber front door. No one came.

“Damn, Rusty!” The owner had to be away. They had probably taken a run into the town, which on her map was Koomera Crossing. She kept talking away to the dog to prove her good intentions. The front door was offset by brilliant stained glass panels, fan lights and sidelights, in the style she had learned was Art Nouveau. She had been starved of beauty. Now she was making up for lost time. She was taking a closer look, one hand resting gently against the front door when the door suddenly gave. It swung open and she was left looking into a generous entrance hall illuminated by the brilliant sunlight. It had an unusual floor of alternating light and dark boards. There was little furniture beyond a single painting hanging above a small dark timber console.

“Hello, there,” she called. “Anyone at home?” But if anyone was at home, surely they would have heard Rusty’s barking.

Afterwards she never knew why she walked in but everything about the place was irresistible. Rusty followed her, making not the slightest attempt to nip at her heels.

Casey laughed. “Some watchdog you are.” She gave him another pat while he looked back at her with an eager, expectant face as if soon they’d be outside playing catch. Obviously Rusty had retired. “Since I’m here, I suppose it’s okay if I fill my container.” She went back to the ute to get it with the cattle dog padding along happily at her side. “Rusty, you old dog, you like women. I wonder if you’d be so nice if I were a man?” Probably not. Men were such threatening creatures. Women weren’t.

By the time she filled the big container to the top it was heavy. She lowered it to the floor and then, because she was so much enjoying being inside such a house, she decided to take a quick look around. She wouldn’t go upstairs. She felt sure she shouldn’t, but there was no harm in taking a look around the ground floor and out the back. Rusty didn’t mind. It was a large house but the furnishings were austere.

The back door was open as well. Obviously the occupier was very trusting. Not that there was anything worth taking. Rusty thinking she might be about to have a look outside, bounded down the short flight of steps, looking back up at her.

It was then she was caught from behind, her arms pinned and hauled behind her back. She had heard no footsteps. Nothing. There was the power of untold strength in the grip.

“What the hell are you up to, cowboy?” A man’s voice ground out. He kicked the back door shut so Rusty couldn’t come to her aid.

That was it! No one manhandled her. The fingers that encircled her wrists were like bands of steel. She could just imagine the rest of him but she wasn’t about to cringe or beg for mercy. Was there no place on earth there wasn’t violence?

She felt a surge of adrenalin, heaving with all her might to loosen the powerful grip. She was far from being a weak woman. She was strong. She’d worked out four times a week at the gym. She lifted weights. Add to that she had taken karate lessons at which she’d proved a natural. She succeeded in freeing herself to the extent one of her hands came loose. That was all she needed. She whirled, ready to defend herself with ugly memories flashing before her eyes. Under attack, she took two quick steps forward, raised her right leg to chest height then drove the ball of her foot at him in a snap kick.

It should have connected but at the last minute he rapidly sidestepped. Immediately she spun, abandoning the idea of another snap kick he might have been expecting for a good old-fashioned sock at his jaw. Bewdy! She heard with satisfaction his grunt as his neck snapped back.

Next things, in under a couple of seconds she was flat on her back, gasping for breath, with her assailant standing over her. She reacted swiftly, rolling away across the carpet runner. One strike each.

“You’re not going to hurt me, you bastard!” She was out of a crouch, back on her feet, fully in control of her body, her mind locked into self-defence. There was no place for panic. She wasn’t going down without a fight.

Trust no man. Your life could depend upon it.

He was taller than she was. Maybe by three or four inches. Rugged and rangy. He was young, too, under thirty. Good tanned skin lay taut over carved bones, thick golden-brown hair, sun-streaked blond. For a space of a breath she thought, gold eyes. Who had gold eyes? She couldn’t feel a rapist’s aura. Instead he was saying tersely, “Get a grip, girl. I’m not going to hurt you.” His expression was startled.

It took a few moments for what he was saying to sink through her consciousness.

“Who are you?” she demanded, maintaining her aggressive stance. At the same time she manoeuvred herself to the back door so she could let Rusty in.

“God!” he exhaled softly. “I had no idea you were a woman.” His voice abruptly hardened. “So what do you mean, who am I? I’m asking the questions around here. Who are you? What are you doing here and what do you want? Look, it’s okay.” He held up his hands. “How long have you been a karate cum prize fighter?”

“As long as guys like you are around!” Her face was still alight with anger, her sapphire eyes blazing. “Maybe I shouldn’t be in here, but I knocked. The door gave. I thought it would be all right if I filled my water container. It’s in the kitchen. What did you think I was going to do? Pinch your lousy possessions?”

“Could be,” he returned, a faint smile on his generous mouth.

“I’m going to let Rusty in,” she said, like Rusty was a trained killer. She flattened herself against the back door then opened it. This guy was tough. Very tough. She saw that now. There wouldn’t be a woman alive who could match his physical strength. Seconds later Rusty was inside the house, exhausted from having run back and forth finding the door locked against him.

“Sit, boy,” her assailant gave the clipped order.

Rusty sat.

Of course! It had to be his dog, though she doubted very much he could get the cattle dog to turn on her.

“Your name please?” he asked, suddenly as formal as a policeman.

“Casey McGuire.”

“No doubt of the mad McGuire clan?” He examined her from head to toe. Far from being some young guy she was all femaleness.

“No clan,” she informed him shortly. “I’m an orphan.”

“I imagine your family prefer it that way. So what are you doing around here, Casey McGuire?”

“Drivin’ through, if it’s any of your business. This your house?”

“In a manner of speaking, but I don’t live here. This house is at the disposal of our resident school master. It’s a few kilometres out of town but he doesn’t mind.”

“Doesn’t he ever lock his doors?” she asked.

“He will from now on,” he informed her. “But as you say, there’s nothing much to take. I apologise for manhandling you. I mistook you for some vagrant out to make trouble.”

“Right!” she said firmly. “Now you know different. I don’t apologise for slugging you. You asked for it.”

He laughed, stroking a hand along his strong jaw where a dark red mark was still visible. “The fact your hat fell off gave you the element of surprise, so don’t take too much credit. How many guys I wonder have a torrent of fiery hair tumbling down their back? How long did it take to grow it?”

“So what’s your name,” she replied, totally ignoring his smart aleck question. Yet all the while he was studying her intently, a small frown between his bronze brows.

“Connellan. Troy Connellan. My dad owns Vulcan Plains about 100 K’s west of here. I had to come into town so I decided to take a run out here to check on a few things. I won’t mention to Phil Carson—that’s the new headmaster—you were snooping around his place.”

She coloured. “I’m sorry. It’s hard to explain. I was just enjoying the house. And Rusty’s company.” She clicked her fingers and the blue speckled dog came to her, showing its pleasure at a few pats on the head.

“Don’t be a fool, Rusty,” Troy Connellan chided. “He might look the picture of a sweet natured dog but I’ve seen Rusty hold quite a few people at bay.”

“I’m good with animals,” she said offhandedly. “So you believe me?”

“I have to put a stop to those right hooks,” he answered sarcastically. “Yeah, I believe you. We got off to a bad start. Where are you heading?”

She shrugged. “I’m going to stop off at the town. Koomera Crossing?”

“Right.” He nodded slowly, still intently sizing her up. There was nothing lecherous about it. The considerable interest wasn’t on that account.

“Then I’m heading out to McIvor country. Murraree. That’s the name of the station, isn’t it?”

“Right again.” He narrowed his eyes. “You’re a relative of Jock’s?”

“You could say that.”

“I hope you know he’s dead?”

“So I’ve heard. But not the end of story.”

“You’ve got me intrigued, Ms McGuire.”

Something about him sent an unwelcome self-awareness crackling along her nerves. “Look, I’m a busy woman.” She said it through her teeth. “You knew Jock McIvor?”